


Black Eye Knight

by Almighty_Carrots



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Gen, Hints of like, M/M, Most of these guys are just mentioned, Snippet, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 00:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Almighty_Carrots/pseuds/Almighty_Carrots
Summary: Stahl is beaten worse than Henry. Well. Henry has been tortured and Stahl has been beaten. The line between the two is fine. Intent, Henry decides, is the tipping point. People dole out a beating when they’re angry, as a personal relief. Torture is more methodical. It’s designed to haunt you. Henry would know, he’s a haunting kind of guy. Still, there’s no denying that physically Stahl has suffered more extensive injuries. A little unfairly too, Henry thinks, given how very nicely he’s asked their captor to step it up already. Stahl doesn’t seem to be getting as much out of it as Henry would be. Shame, that.





	Black Eye Knight

**Author's Note:**

> I binged Awakening in two days so this kind of just happened. I have no idea what's going on here. Might write more of this, might not. Just kinda glad I part-way finished something to be totally honest.
> 
> As always, much love and enjoy :)

Henry is not shocked to find himself once again sitting beaten in a Ylissean dungeon. He has a way of making that kind of trouble for himself. For a refreshing change of pace, this time the Ylisseans didn’t put him there. The company could be more engaged, he considers, but otherwise it’s been a remarkably five-star jailing.

  
Stahl is beaten worse than Henry. Well. Henry has been tortured and Stahl has been beaten. The line between the two is fine. Intent, Henry decides, is the tipping point. People dole out a beating when they’re angry, as a personal relief. Torture is more methodical. It’s designed to haunt you. Henry would know, he’s a haunting kind of guy. Still, there’s no denying that physically Stahl has suffered more extensive injuries. A little unfairly too, Henry thinks, given how very nicely he’s asked their captor to step it up already. Stahl doesn’t seem to be getting as much out of it as Henry would be. Shame, that.

Stahl is incredibly uncomfortable with Henry being tortured, which Henry thinks is a little silly. A genuinely a-grade torturer is hard to come by, and even rarer are the ones who can give a good chat while pulling out your thumbnails. Henry really is getting a once in a lifetime experience.

Trying to explain this to Stahl only further distresses him. At first having Stahl hovering over him with fretful hands was a strange experience, but Henry is growing accustomed to the novelty of having someone hold him. It might be nice, he thinks. Nice might be the feeling he’s trying to describe. No matter the details Henry is finding that while his own distress is top notch fun, he doesn’t much care for upsetting Stahl.

Stahl has a pretty face, ringed with bruises and the beginnings of facial hair catching his jaw. Henry can appreciate that. It feels funny to run his hand over Stahl’s bristly cheek. When they drop Henry back in the cell Stahl always looks him over for new injuries and cleans up his wounds as best he can. His hands never shake. Sometimes it takes Henry longer to come down from the high of having such exquisite things done to him and Stahl will run his fingers through Henry’s hair and softly sing to him. Stahl always lets Henry rub his stubble. Stahl’s good like that.

If Henry feels bad Stahl will also cradle him in his big buff soldier arms and say nice things to him. It’s getting to the point where the best part of being tortured is when Stahl cuddles him afterwards. Henry can’t even fully immerse himself in the torture anymore because halfway through he starts thinking about Stahl’s scratchy face and what his mom must’ve been like to have made up that silly lullaby for him, and really, it’s beginning to sour the experience.

The torture isn’t even fun anymore. The secret is that Henry doesn’t know anything, and his torturer knows that he doesn’t know anything. There’s no way that two men who have been imprisoned for half a year would be up to date on the Shepherds’ whereabouts and current strategies. Henry was trying to be like Robin, figure out the enemy before they even know they’re an enemy. If Henry and Stahl don’t know anything, and really have no value as hostages, why were they still here, alive?

Two months in, Henry figured it out. The general who overseas this force has an insatiable bloodlust. Parked here, in the middle of the Ylissean countryside, with no battles forthcoming, he starts slipping into madness. Keeping Henry around keeps him from hurting his own troops. Henry thinks that’s an admirable solution, but he gets the feeling that this is one of those things that would upset Stahl.

So this general spends his time planning all kinds of depraved and destructive things to do to Henry, which is all well and fine. In fact, it was flattering at first. But now Henry is starting to see that maybe he’s been enabling his captor too much. It was easy to get caught up in the fun of it all and forget that Henry has no safe-word. He’s very much locked into the ride and there’s only so many ways you can change a ride up before it starts becoming dangerous.

The change must have been gradual. To Henry it feels sudden. One day he’s sitting in his cell with Stahl leaned against him, marveling at how much more body hair knights seem to have than mages, and a guard drags him out. Henry hadn’t wanted to go. It had been nice, sitting with Stahl. It sparks a realization that lasts the entirety of the three days his captor tries new methods of working him over. Henry has no control. He thought he did, because he thought he understood why he was here. But there’s a difference between understanding someone and being on equal terms with them.

The most unsettling part is that Henry can’t say when he started to care about his own life. Death has always been an exciting, and sometimes _exciting_ , concept for him. When is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? Where is it going to happen?

What will it feel like?

His fear of losing people has always been minimized by the lack of people in his life. Beyond that, he always knew that he would see them again when he died. No big, then. But he’s hit with the idea that he doesn’t want to have to wait for someone else to die. He wants to sit on the dungeon floor and poke Stahl’s fuzzy tummy hairs now, while he’s alive.

Spending three days without getting to touch any hair of any kind sucks. It sucks big time and it hurts to boot. Blood is fun and all, but Henry could really do without the accompanying pain. Even with his nerve damage, the torturer finds a way. Henry doesn’t feel like being talkative, a fact his captor remarks on as odd.

When they finally dump him back in his cell Stahl’s been roughed up again. He looks a little more defeated than usual. Someone hosed him down with cold water and he’s shivering mildly. He’s sitting very tensely, as if trying not to aggravate any wounds, although none are obvious to Henry’s eye. His lip is split. Inexplicably this drives Henry into the kind of rage he’s rarely possessed by. The dungeon’s wards prevent much magical use, but in his anger, Henry can feel them stretch and split trying to comprehend his intentions. Henry himself isn’t sure what he plans to do. Something bloody. The energy expels itself at the guard directly outside their cell.

Henry does good work when he’s mad. They’ll be washing what’s left of the guard out of that armour. The gore spray is artistic in the way it spirals across the wall. Instantly his remaining strength is sapped. He collapses to one knee before Stahl can move to catch him. Stahl himself seems to have very little strength, sliding back against the wall with Henry in his arms. Curled against his chest, Henry gets a front row view of the bruising forming against Stahl’s ribs and up the sides of his throat. The colours are going to be pretty.

This is the part where normally Stahl holds Henry and tells him it’s going to be okay, or sings his mom’s lullaby just a little off-key, but today Stahl seems drained of even the energy to do that. He sits against the wall and stares out of the cell at what’s left of their guard. Eventually someone will come check on him and then they really will be in trouble. Until then though, they have some privacy. Stahl isn’t looking at the guard though, Henry decides. He looks like he’s focused on something far away. Like Henry gets sometimes when he comes back from being tortured. As if his body is freezing while his brain whirls away with all sorts of dreadful things.

He tries to remember what Stahl does to bring Henry back down to his body. He takes Stahl’s hand and holds it to his stubbly cheek and then tries to sing the lullaby Stahl usually hums to him. It doesn’t work right away, disappointingly. Henry puts an arm around Stahl’s broad shoulders and hugs him. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” Henry promises. These are the words Stahl repeats to Henry when he’s upset. It does the trick, cracking Stahl open like a broken stone. He cries. It happens without any warning, startling Henry.

“I’m sorry. Gods, I’m so sorry,” his chest heaves as if he’s struggling to breath. He scrubs furiously at his eyes. Stumbling only slightly he scrambles to his feet. His knees are shredded. Blood sluggishly drips down his shins. Henry drags a finger through it, oddly fascinated. “Can you stand?” Stahl holds down a hand and pulls Henry upright. Henry gives standing a shot and finds that yes, he can shakily stand. “We need to try and get out of here while we have this chance.”

It must be Frederick’s training kicking in that guides Stahl through getting their cell key from the dead guard and leading them silently down the hall towards what Henry thinks is an exit. They encounter no guards, which seems wrong. Like something besides them is afoot. Breaking through the wards even for a moment took everything Henry had in him and then some. Despite his injuries, Stahl drapes Henry half across his back, carrying almost all his weight. Frederick’s training: it does things to a man.

They duck into an unlocked door when they hear guards coming from down the hallway and find themselves standing in an empty office. The guards march in a hurry, barking something about trouble at the north gate. Stahl gives the room a quick glance over and spots a curtain, which he steals the metal rod from. Looking out the window Henry can see the guards’ trouble right away. Even from up here it’s impossible to miss pretty Minerva. Their exalted prince himself is cutting swathes into the forces at the gate like a steel arrow. Chrom always has liked leading from the front.

Stahl looks over Henry’s shoulder and gives a short laugh. Directly below their window Sully stabs a man in the face with one end of her spear and knocks an archer off his horse with the other. The archer gets back up as she’s turning. Possessed by the need to do something, Henry grabs a thick book off the desk and tosses it out the window. He misses. Stahl shoves the entire desk up through the window and flattens the man with a riotous crash. Several people in the vicinity of the calamity look up.

Sully lets out a joyous whoop upon seeing their faces. “Get on down here, you bastards! I can barely see your ugly faces from up there!” By the time Stahl and Henry stumble down to the main hall Chrom has already decimated the place. The curtain rod makes a less than ideal weapon against the two guards who attack them. Minerva eats one of them and Cherche pastes the other with a hefty swing of her hammer.

Stahl all but tosses Henry up to Cherche, where he sits behind her on Minerva and holds on tightly. Minerva snorts and licks his hair, which is sweet, but she has insanely bad dead-guy breath. They make their way into the heart of the battle, where Robin is turning people into soot with that wicked lightning spell of his. When Henry looks back for Stahl he can just spot him swinging up behind Sully onto her horse. Sully’s good people. It’s a relief that she’ll keep an eye on Stahl while Henry goes and watches Cherche flatten people. They make the silliest splatters.

Chrom finds Henry after the battle and walks him to the med tent personally. Stahl is already there, undergoing the most terrifyingly intense treatment a man can receive from the duel combination of Lissa and Maribelle. Frederick hovering like a nervous den mother in the background probably doesn’t ease the tension. Instinctively Henry wants to go sit by Stahl. Chrom turns him instead into Libra’s embrace and tells Henry how relieved he is to find them both alive.

Henry fidgets behind his curtain and huffs as Libra does a brisk, thorough examination. Libra has always struck Henry as one of those people who could kick his ass, but probably never would. Today is not the day he wants to test that line, so he sits patiently through his examination. Libra’s really pretty, but there’s some quality to him that comes up lacking when Henry compares his features to Stahl’s. But then, they worship two totally different religions and Libra’s never once been weird about it, so he’s cool that way.

“Stahl’s gonna be okay, right?” Henry asks. Libra inclines his head.

“His injuries will heal. It may take time for both of you to fully rehabilitate mentally.” Henry blinks because he hadn’t thought about himself at all. He feels just as fine as he ever did. He tells this to Libra, who smiles at him with strange eyes. “I’m pleased to hear that, Henry,” he says. Henry watches his jaw a little more. It’s the hair, he decides. Libra has long hair, but he’s still not as hairy in general as Stahl. He doesn’t have those little arms hairs Henry likes rubbing up and down.

They both are sent to their tents with orders to keep on bed rest as much as possible for the next week. Two days pass for Henry and he is entirely alone save for Libra regularly coming by to inspect his injuries. Libra is nice enough, but he isn’t a great conversationalist. On the third day of not seeing Stahl nervousness begins to set in. Maybe he died. Maybe he died, and nobody thought to tell Henry because they didn’t think he’d care. The idea settles in Henry that surely something terrible has happened. Most people would simply ask but Henry has these little not-memories. Flashes of ideas, consequences that he can’t quite grasp through the haze of general trauma and blood.

It’s a bad idea, he unconsciously remembers, to show an interest in people. That’s a sure way to get people hurt. Instead, Henry waits until just a beat after Libra’s regular visit, early in the morning, and he sneaks out. Robin’s had the camp reconfigured again since the last time he was here and Henry isn’t sure where he’s going to find Stahl. By Frederick, Henry reasons, if Stahl is alive, given the way Frederick had hovered over his knight in the infirmary. And Frederick, obviously, will be by the training grounds because that's the best place for him to harass innocent mages minding their own businesses and force them to commit physical activities. The training grounds are where Henry can hear the swords from, so he goes that way.

The sky is very bright out, which Henry still isn't sure whether or not he likes. He gets distracted looking at all the neat little star-shaped scars on his palms and almost wanders right into the side of a tent before he remembers he's supposed to be sneaking along. Henry peeks in the back of the tent. There aren't any people, and certainly no Stahl, so he keeps creeping along. Extra quietly now, to make up for the noise he made earlier. He finds Stahl in the fifth tent he checks. The knight is doing push ups on the carpeted ground, which Henry is quite sure he is not supposed to be doing, just like how Henry is not supposed to go creeping around the camp. Stahl doesn't notice Henry right away, so Henry just watches him for a while. The stubble-y beard is gone, which Henry is sad about, but he supposed as long as Stahl still has those fuzzy arm hairs he's probably still the same Stahl who Henry was imprisoned with.

Stahl is sweaty, and his arms tremble almost as much now as Henry's do when he tries to do a push up. Probably, though, Stahl has already done a lot more push ups than Henry can do before Henry even got here. "I'm glad you're not dead," Henry chirps up, because telling people how you feel is good communication. Stahl's arms give out and he drops to the carpet in surprise. "I thought maybe you had died and nobody told me, but you didn't."

"No, no I didn't." Stahl gets up slowly, rolling over with his legs folded and leaning forward to stretch each vertebrae along his spine. "I'm, ah, glad you're not dead too." Stahl says. It's early enough that there's still pale morning light sneaking between the tent flaps, and the light catches along Stahl's stomach as he stands up and stretches his shoulders out in a way that makes it seem like he and Henry are hardly the same species. Henry used to theorize that knights were a separate branch of the species from mages because they seemed to have extra muscles in places Henry never found on his own body. As it turns out, though, they have all the same insides after all. Henry checked. "You can sit, if you want," Stahl gestures to the edge of his bedroll. Like Henry's it has been rolled out and well used the last few days. Henry does flop down, surprised at how tiring the simple act of walking through camp has been. He watches Stahl grab a water skin. Stahl looked better before they were captured, he decides, although his recollections have failed him in the past. There's too little to him now, like he's been squeezed out and all his fun, squishy bits are shaved away.

Stahl sits next to Henry and offers him the skin. It feels natural to share, and to sit so close to each other, and even for Stahl to be just a little sweaty. It isn't an unpleasant sensation. Sometimes it had been like this when Stahl had held him in the dungeon, quiet and still. Out of curiosity, Henry leans his head against Stahl's shoulder like he used to, just to see if Stahl will still hold him here or if that was an interaction limited to the twilight world of extended capture. Stahl, after a moment, does curl an arm around Henry. It's slightly sticky with sweat.

"Does this mean we're friends now?" Henry asks, because he's very new at any kind of human friendship.

"If you want to be," Stahl says. "I'd like to be friends, Henry." The last edges of bruise around Stahl's eyes are fading, and Henry has had his bandages bloodless for almost a whole day now. Their healers do good work. Henry thinks this might be good. Him and Stahl. He can hear the steady, gentle beating of Stahl's heart through his chest. It sounds like a pair of wings, the thrumming sound of a crow that flies away right off of Henry's shoulder.

Henry likes crows.


End file.
